The House of Shattered Wings

FOR a moment Philippe stood frozen, looking at Isabelle. The light was already trembling, on the cusp of extinguishing itself, its persistent whispers fading into silence, its secret traceries absorbed into her skin. He tried to whisper her name, but the light held him fast—the light, and the ageless reflection in her eyes, the same storm of power he’d always seen in Morningstar’s gaze, a conflagration that promised him anything he’d ever wanted.

There was something behind her, a shadow that was growing, even as the light sank down and died, even as the dust on the stone bed scattered under the breath of a wind that came from nowhere: something that wasn’t wings, or light. Something . . .

And then the light was entirely gone, and there was only Isabelle, bewildered and lost, staring at him as though he could make sense of it all; and behind her, a translucent figure, like a ghost: Morningstar, arms outstretched as though to embrace her, a mocking smile on his face.

A cry echoed under the arched ceiling; mingled anger and triumph, even as the shadows deepened around them.

At last! the voice screamed. He had never heard it, but the burden of its presence was one he’d lived with for days; and he knew exactly who it belonged to: the ghost who harried them from beyond its restless grave. Nameless, featureless, weightless—too many things he had no hold on—as Chung Thoai had said, how could he hope to fight it? Why had he come back here? It was futile.

Darkness pooled on the scored floor: the shadows, as thick as ink or tar; raising tendrils like the heads of ten thousand snakes, hissing and snapping at the air. But they never reached Isabelle: they met a circle on the floor—runes that Philippe hadn’t seen in his rush to get to the bones, finely graven into the stone—a protection that seemed to be an impregnable barrier to the shadows. The tendrils thickened and merged, until they became three human-shaped shadows—except that each wore a crown of snakes. Their hiss deepened, became a voice that made the earth tremble.

Kinslayer.

Behind Isabelle, Morningstar stretched and smiled, his serrated wings catching the light. He bowed, an old-fashioned gentleman showing his respect to ladies of good family. Erinyes.

The floor was pulling apart: cracks appeared on the stone pavement, outlining the circle’s boundary, as if burning-hot fingers were pressing down all around the circumference.

Did you think you could escape? the Furies asked.

Philippe’s chest—it, too, felt as though it was going to pull apart, as if the storm of crows roiling within was going to break free in a welter of beaks and blood-soaked claws—but Morningstar merely smiled. On the contrary, I knew I couldn’t. There is always a price to be paid, isn’t there? In blood or lives or both . . .

The circle was bending inward—the shadows at the feet of the Furies pressing it out of shape—the cracks getting wider and wider—until, with an earsplitting sound that sent Philippe stumbling to the floor, the protections broke.

The Furies surged forward; and Morningstar, detaching himself from Isabelle, walked to meet them. He was still smiling—and the smile didn’t waver as the snakes wrapped around him; and their voices grew into a scream of mingled rage and satisfaction—and the light in the crypt grew so bright that Philippe had to cover his eyes.

When he opened them again, everything was silent; and Isabelle stood, watching him, by the side of the empty stone bed. She looked unharmed. “Isabelle!”

“I’m fine.”

The air had changed: no longer pregnant or oppressive, that sense of breathless waiting gone. “He’s gone,” Philippe said, aloud.

And so, it seemed, were the Furies.

Isabelle shook her head, dislodging a few strands of errant hair from the tight mass wound at her nape. “What was that?” she asked; but he saw in her eyes that she knew. “He was dead,” she said, slowly.

“Not yet. But now, yes.” Dead and gone on, to wherever the Fallen went, the last trace of him removed from this Earth.

“And the . . . Furies?”

“I don’t know,” Philippe said. He couldn’t hear anything from the cathedral anymore; even the faint pressure at the back of his mind was gone. “They got what they wanted, I think.” Kinslayer. The Fallen who had sent his student to slaughter. Blood or life or both. . . .

And now the House, once protected by Morningstar’s bones, lay vulnerable.

“He died for the House,” Isabelle said.

“Do you—” He shook his head. “Do you have his memories?”

“No. Just images. Glimpses.” She smiled wryly. “It’s just as well, isn’t it? I get the feeling that the full version would burn my eyes clean out of their sockets.”

Philippe forced a smile. Ngoc Bich had warned him about coming back to the House—but she had been wrong. He drew a deep, trembling breath—no, too much to expect. The curse was still there. The shadows—the Furies—had only been part of it. There was . . . something else to it, something bigger and larger that still sought the destruction of the House—the anger and rage and betrayal of Morningstar’s student.